TCF World Podcast: Iraq after the Kurdish referendum

Renad is an academy fellow at the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, where his research focuses on Iraq, Iran, and Kurdish affairs and a lecturer at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he teaches a MSc course on the International Relations of the Middle East. He is also a fellow at the Cambridge Security Initiative based at the University of Cambridge, where he previously held positions as lecturer and supervisor at the faculty of politics. Renad has also held research posts at the Carnegie Middle East Center and the Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies. He received his PhD from Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Christine van den Toorn is the Director of IRIS. She has over 10 years of academic and professional experience in the Middle East, 6 of which have been spent in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). She has conducted fieldwork all over the KRI, with a particular focus on disputed territories in Ninewa, Diyala and Salahddin, and has published articles and reports in leading publications like Iraq Oil Report, Inside Iraqi Politics, Daily Beast and Niqash as well as delivered talks on her research. Ms. van den Toorn has also conducted baseline reports and social impact assessments for international oil companies operating in the KRI and disputed territories, working with teams of student researchers from AUIS. She served in the United States Peace Corps in Morocco and holds an MA in Middle East History from the University of Virginia, and taught the subject at AUIS for 4 years. Ms. van den Toorn speaks Arabic, which she studied at Middlebury College, Georgetown University, the University of Damascus in Syria and the French Institute for Near East Studies in Damascus.